A New Exhibition for the University of Pennsylvanias Year of Sound Opens at the Penn Museum August 18, 2013

* * * Exhibition Puts a Spotlight on the Worlds First Sound-Synced Expeditionary Film From the Penn Museums Archival Film Collection PHILADELPHIA, PA 2013The worlds first sound-synced expeditionary film, shot during a 1931 Penn Museum expedition to a remote Amazonian jungle, forms the centerpiece of Hollywood in the Amazon, a special exhibition developed as part of the University of Pennsylvanias 201314 Year of Sound. The exhibition runs August 18, 2013 through July 27, 2014 in the Penn Museums third floor Special Exhibitions gallery. In 1931, an expedition from the Penn Museum introduced a revolutionary new research method in the remote Amazonian jungles of Brazil. Transporting state-of-the-art equipment by sea, air, and river, the team arrived in territory occupied by the Bororo people and recorded an expeditionary film, Matto Grosso, the Great Brazilian Wilderness, incorporating live sound. It was the first time non-Western people were seen and heard on sound-synced film. A collaboration between Academy award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby (father of musician David Crosby), wealthy industrialist E. R. Fenimore Johnson (whose father founded Victor Talking Machine Company), big game hunter Sasha Siemel, and Penn Museum anthropologist Vincenzo Petrullo, the groundbreaking film is presented in its 49-minute entirety. The small gallery exhibition tells the colorful story of the remote expedition, fraught with physical trials for anthropologists and filmmakers alike. Several artifacts from the Bororo people, collected during the expedition, enrich the story. Translations of the Bororo speakers, obtained from Bororo people in 2011, provide another aspect to the tale. About the Film and the Museums Archival Film Collection: The 1931 film Matto Grosso, the Great Brazilian Wilderness was originally intended to provide a new kind of record of people, flora, and fauna. As with many early attempts at documentary films, the end result is more of a mirror reflection of the people making the film, noted Penn Museum film archivist Kate Pourshariati, adding some of the quaint narrative devices employed are rightly viewed with skepticism. After some early theatrical screenings, the film was relegated to relative obscurity in the Archives until 2008 when, under a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation, the film and its sound were restored. The Museum plans a DVD release of the film for wider distribution.

Matto Grosso, the Great Brazilian Wilderness is one of many archival films in the Museums collection, which includes hundreds of ethnographic, travel and other films and clips. Thanks to a collaboration with the Internet Archive, the majority of the Museum's rare and often fragile early archival footage, once largely inaccessible, was digitized in 2008, and makes up much of the Penn Museums popular YouTube channel, which surpassed a million video views in May 2013. Ms. Pourshariati also curates an occasional Penn Museum film series, Live from the Archives!, as well as an annual Second Sunday Culture Film Seriesbringing audiences and experts together to watch and share conversations about old and contemporary ethnographic films. While working on the film restoration project, Ms. Pourshariati, with help from Penn Museum Consulting Scholar Greg Urban, was able to connect with Brazilian anthropologist Dr. Sylvia Caiuby Novaes, and through her, to Bororo people today. They watched (and apparently enjoyed) the film, in one case providing an actual name of one now-deceased Bororo shaman, and providing translations of the Bororo dialogue. These translations can be used as optional English subtitles in the Museums planned new DVD release of the film. Speaking to the value of this archival film and others, Ms. Pourshariati said, The age of large individually sponsored expeditions has come to an end, and even very remote parts of the world have been traveled. Filmmakers from international source communities now produce their own documentaries, giving essential indigenous perspectives to the expanding universe of knowledge. Still, these early films have great value. In museums and archives, we are now arriving at a quite thrilling time in which the generations of collected materials can be shared back with these source communities, offering inside perspectives on materials long hidden from view. The Penn Museum (the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) is dedicated to the study and understanding of human history and diversity. Founded in 1887, the Museum has sent more than 400 archaeological and anthropological expeditions to all the inhabited continents of the world. With an active exhibition schedule and educational programming for children and adults, the Museum offers the public an opportunity to share in the ongoing discovery of humankind's collective heritage. The Penn Museum is located at 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (on Penn's campus, across from Franklin Field). Public transportation to the Museum is available via SEPTA's Regional Rail Line at University City Station; the Market-Frankford Subway Line at 34th Street Station; trolley routes 11, 13, 34, and 36; and bus routes 21, 30, 40, and 42. Museum hours are Tuesday and Thursday through Sunday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Wednesday, 10:00 am to 8:00 pm, with P.M. @ PENN MUSEUM evening programs offered select Wednesdays. Closed Mondays and holidays. Admission donation is $12 for adults; $10 for senior citizens (65 and above) and active U.S. Military; $8 for children (6 to 17) and full-time students with ID; free to Members, PennCard holders, and children 5 and younger. Beginning July 1: admission donation is $15 adults; $13 for senior citizens (65 and above); free for U.S. Military (and free for military families over the summer, through participation with the Blue Star program); $10 for children and full-time students with ID; free to Members, PennCard holders, and children 5 and younger. Hot and cold meals and light refreshments are offered to visitors with or without Museum admission in The Pepper Mill Caf; the Museum Shop and Pyramid Shop for Children offer a wide selection of gifts, books, games, clothing and jewelry. Penn Museum can be found on the web at www.penn.museum. For general information call 215.898.4000. For group tour information call 215.746.8183.